


Underground.

by LookingForDroids



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Nightmares, Post-MAG132, The Buried Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28031904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: Karolina dreams, and the Archivist watches. But turnabout’s fair play.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Underground.

Karolina Górka knows she hasn’t left the place beneath the earth behind. The memory of it clings like a patina of grime, and it hasn’t escaped her notice that she leaves trails of dust wherever she goes, or that her fingerprints are dirty smears on everything she owns. It reaches out from every tunnel and closed-in space, but the way it follows feels less like mockery than courtship. 

It’s not a proposal she has any intention of accepting. There’s a wrongness to how right it feels, a prickle of warning that sits between her shoulderblades every time she descends to catch the last train home. But it doesn’t scare her, either, knowing that the Underground wants her back – not until the night comes, and she can’t stop herself from dreaming. Then she’s trapped again, and terrified, dissected by a stranger’s avid gaze.

Those dreams are constant, until the night they change.

Not by much. The script isn’t altered. The Watcher isn’t gone. There’s no way out that wasn’t there before. The dirt still rises higher with every passing second, packs deeper and denser; it’s up to her shoulders now, trickling in through a crack in the window, and soon she won’t be able to breathe. But the smell is different: not dry earth but damp, heavy air, the kind she imagines might waft from an open grave. Outside the walls, there’s a sound like rain, like fingernails scratching against dry wood, like a soft and almost musical moaning. It’s comforting, the way the dust is comforting as it sifts down slowly to bury her. There’s a hunger in the place beneath the earth, but right now, it isn’t turned on her. 

She looks back at the Watcher watching her, and this time, she sees him as he is: thinner than he used to be, more scarred, weighed down by something inescapable. His eyes are dark and huge. He can’t run. He can only watch.

The metal walls of the car creak beneath the pressure, and Karolina smiles as the Underground closes in around them both. He isn’t the hungry one now, and she isn’t the prey. He’s trapped in here with her, and he’s afraid.


End file.
